We Lived On A Ranch

(Garrett inhales deeply)
– Ah, nature. Hi. I’m Garrett. – And I’m Niki. – We’re fascinated by
how other people live. – [Niki] So we’re gonna try to find some really interesting living situations. – [Garrett] And live there, experiencing a totally
different lifestyle. – [Niki] To see which ones
will bring us closer together. – [Garrett] Or push us farther apart. – This week, we’re livin’ on a ranch! This is what ranches look like. – It’s thousands of acres.
– It’s huge. (hip muzak) (upbeat guitar music) – I’m Jeanne.
– I’m Eric. – [Jeanne] And we’re here
at the Cold Creek Ranch, and we’ve been on this ranch for 12 years. – [Eric] This idea here is
to apply everything we know to manage the land for its best health. Not for the cattle’s health.
For the land’s health. – And then the cattle’s
health will follow. – Lifestyle on a ranch, to me, sounds like you’re wearing cowboy boots and you’re using those
cowboy boots to step in horseshit all day long. – I’ve never lived in
any sort of ranch or farm or wild countryside in the Wild Wild West. Wild.
(laughs) – [Jeanne] We’re our own water company, our own electric company. Only one part of the ranch
has real electricity. – [Eric] A typical day could
start out shoeing a horse, and because of something
happening two hours later, you might be repairing a water line. It’s all over the place all the time. – All I know about
ranches is what I’ve seen on TV and movies. Not a great frame of reference. I feel like I’m gonna meet a farmhand and fall in love with him
while he carries hay bales, and I sit inside drinking tea
in a ridiculous pink dress. – A lot of people get excited
about ranches. I don’t get it. I don’t think horses are cool.
I don’t think cows are cool. I don’t like the idea of ranches. I like barbecue. – Look at this beautiful door. Is that a horse foot knocker? – Yes.
– Yep. – [Niki] Use it. – [Eric] That’s actually Trampus’ foot. – Niki and I, we live in
a lot of different places that all feel like the 21st Century. This feels like it’s from the late 1800s. That wood-burning stove
in there is amazing. – [Eric] This is the only heat we’ve got. – [Niki] Oh, my goodness. – We only have this house about
three week out of the year and the rest of the time
you’re trying to cool it off. – I’ve lived my entire life in cities. This is gonna be a very,
very different lifestyle. I’m pretty scared. – [Eric] This is the living room, although there’s gotta be a
better name for it than that. We’re turning it into a library. The wood work is all made by local joiners who really know their craft. It’s hard to join something
that’s not straight. I’m gonna show you the way upstairs. – [Jeanne] We have the Western
Room and the Africa Room. You guys can choose. Flip a coin. Whatever you want to do to
decide who gets which room. – Do they join?
– Yes, they do. – There’s a shared
bathroom in between them. – This is perfect. – So this is the Africa Room.
– Wow. – [Jeanne] We have spent
a lot of time in Africa. – To be honest, that thing
freaks me out a little bit. I mean, it’s very beautiful, but… – The eyeballs.
– Yeah. – So you can have this room.
– That’s fine. – I think this is gonna require a lot of early mornings and labor. I am probably gonna look
like a real stupid city kid. I’m not gonna know how anything works. – I’m really nervous about this ranch. Hopefully we can rely on each other instead of feeling
burdened by one another. – I don’t think it will bode
well for our relationship. – Well we’re gonna head on
up the telephone trailer. This is something I do usually once a day because there is no cell phone coverage down at the bottom of this canyon. – So many people now think of a landscape as just sort of a backdrop. It has nothing to do with
anything they do in their lives, and they come away from here generally with a very, very vivid
idea of just how involved we are with our landscape. It’s a lifestyle. It’s not
a career in that sense. – [Garrett] It blew my
mind that you could own all of the land to,
basically, the horizon. – [Niki] We got to see
as much of the property as we could from one vantage
point, which is crazy because that’s something
like ten thousand acres. – They only have to conserve
electricity at night for six weeks out of the year. And we just happen to be here
during one of those weeks. – [Niki] We cooked dinner in the dark. Which was a little scary because
I was working with knives, but still have all my fingers. Tomorrow should be a full day of work, and it’s really whatever the ranch needs taken care of tomorrow is
whatever we will tend to. – [Garrett] Let’s go
say goodnight to Niki. Okay, goodnight Niki.
– Goodnight. – Sleep tight. I’m just gonna be… – Right over there.
(they laugh) – In there. With my door
open so the heat stays. – Goodnight.
– Goodnight. (loud bang) – Ooh, god.
– Ooh. Are you okay? – No, it wasn’t my head.
That was the thing. – Okay. (laughs)
– I’m fine. (bright string music) – It’s about seven-ish AM,
and I think it’s raining. So I don’t know what that means for today, but we might have to change our plans. – Good morning, guys.
– Morning. – Thank you for breakfast.
– You’re welcome. – [Niki] Thank you so much for breakfast. – [Garrett] There are the solar panels. They’re not gonna get
much electricity today. – We’ve made some alternative arrangements depending on how up to learning
how to shoe a horse you are. – How many horses did
you say you got up here? – [Eric] There’s four in here now, but we got three more up on top and then a whole bunch of strays over on the other side of the ranch. – Get outta here. Leave me alone. – Garrett’s taller than the horse. – I’m gonna feed ya. – [Niki] We had to switch to plan b which involved taking care of the horses. That was kind of an opportunity that Eric and Jeanne had to do tasks that they don’t usually have time to do. She didn’t choose me. – This is Sugar right
here. The deep red one. – [Niki] You so pretty. Sugar needs a new pair of shoes. – Two pairs.
– Two pairs of shoes. – So one of the main purposes
of trimming horses’ feet is to make sure that
finger nail is trimmed back so it doesn’t interfere
with proper movement. Now I’ve pushed the tang away from me and use only the corse side. Pulling is easier than pushing it. And you go around like
that until you shape it. And you’ll see there’s a white line here. You don’t wanna go any
closer in than that. But that’s how we’re gonna do it. (upbeat muzak) – [Garrett] Been wrestling with Sugar for a little while now. It’s tough working with
this gigantic animal that can kill you if it wanted to. – [Eric] Come on. – This horse doesn’t even
know what’s good for it. This is gonna be so much nicer. Come on. (Garrett sighs) – Alright. Hi again. Hello. It’s cold. I can’t feel my hands. Been out here for like an hour I think, and we’ve done two of Sugar’s feet. It’s like a pedicure. – Looks like half of a coconut. – What?
– It does, doesn’t it? Look like half of a coconut? – No. – I’m gonna confess something that may not be that surprising. These are my first time putting on chaps. – Well, your first problem
is pronouncing it correctly. It’s ‘shaps’, not ‘chaps’. Chaps are British dudes. – So this is to protect
us from horse nails. – In this case, yeah. – Can you help me? Garrett and I have just
been working all day, but we’ve been working
together so I think, you know, we’re enjoying
each other’s company. – How’s that?
– Good. – [Garrett] We were doing things way outside our comfort zone
so it was really nice to have a friend check in on
me to make sure I was good. – How do I look? – Great. Like a million bucks. How do I look? – Fine.
– Alright. – You look like your chaps are too short. – Mine? Yeah. (bright string music) – So the trick is to drive the nail in such a way that it goes
through, gets a good chunk of the hoof without
cutting into the quick, and still enough coming out the other side that you can crimp it. – I don’t have enough hands for this. (laughs) I just keep missing. Oh, my hands! This is tough stuff. And I feel like a total weenie,
but it’s rewarding, I guess. This is part of taking
care of your horses. – How ya doin’? Ready for another one. Eric said when he came out to this land he would shoe eight horses a day. A filing and nailing it in, and oh my god. It’s a lot of work. You got it Niki. Keep at it. – I’m half covered in poop. I can’t believe we did
so little in four hours. We gave her two shoes because
we were taking too long, and she was getting fussy. – My hands are so tired. I can’t
even hold a hammer anymore. And if I swing a hammer it’s
gonna fly outta my hand. If I had to do this by myself,
I don’t know what I would do. I guess I would shoe a
horse with one shoe a day. (uptempo harp music) – After lunch, we oiled saddles. – That sucked. – We are going to be
doing annual maintenance on our working stock saddles. – Should I take off my cute socks? – Well you could actually use
your cute socks to oil with. – I’m gonna go change my socks. – You just go ahead and put some oil on the sponge and just sponge it in. – [Niki] How do you
know you’ve done enough? – [Eric] Well, the oil soaks right in, but you can see the difference. – [Niki] So far it’s just a lot of work with your hands. Huh? – Pretty much.
– Manual labor. – [Garrett] There’s like a latitude here. I guess I’m more used to like a precision for everything you have to do, but here, there’s really a latitude of like “Yeah that’s
fine. Yeah that’s fine.” Which is what you need
to survive out here. – It is a hard life out here,
and now I totally get it when Eric says it doesn’t
matter what day it is. They do what they have to do, and they do what the ranch demands. It’s been like, what, a few hours now? – A couple hours anyway.
– A couple hours? I think we’re done. I’m done. – I wish I were done.
– Garrett’s not done. Just a lot of work! It’s a lot of work. – It’s a lot of work
just to be able to work. – My body is sore. When I was sittin’ there
oiling the saddles, I kind of noticed my leg was hurting, and I found a gnarly bruise. Here’s the bruising. It’s kind of blue. Pretty gross. – Today was just a grueling day, and it wasn’t even as grueling as it could have been because of the rain. – We still have another early
morning ahead of us tomorrow. Maybe the cows if the weather permit it. We’re not done yet. Night. – Goodnight, Niki. Good
job with the horse. (laughs)
– Thanks. Night. It’s the morning of Day 3. It doesn’t look like it’s raining
so let’s go see some cows. (bright staccato string music) – What we’d like to do is
show the cows that we have some additional supplement
for them right now. – Feels like a heavy med ball, you know. – [Eric] Well, you get
your exercise this way. I can guarantee you. – How many cows do we need to lure in order for this to be successful? – [Jeanne] We got fifty last time. – You’re looking at probably
30 right now. You can see them. – I don’t see any cows. – Two right on the horizon there? – Yes. Yes, I do.
– Then on the ridge land. – Oh, okay. And then I
see a third one there. – And another one down there.
– Okay, so that’s three. – Heeeey coooows! – Literally, hey cows. – Yep, and I just do like
this to kind of broadcast. – Heeeey coooows! – That was good.
– You should try, Garrett. – Heeeey coooows! (cow moos in distance) – [Eric] Alright, we’re comin’. (mimics cow sound) – [Niki] It’s like Chewbaccaca. How long do we do this for? – ‘Til the come around.
– ‘Til they come? – [Jeanne] This is the other lesson you get from ranching is patience. – Yeah. I’m noticing that one. Heeeeey cooooows! (cow moos in distance) It’s been only half an
hour, forty-five minutes of calling cows out here
and we think it’s too cold, and they’ve kind of
settled in for the day. – You did a good job
though. You got ’em moving. You got ’em started. – Thank you. Yeah, we
got some progress made, but not a whole lot. – Thank you guys.
– Thank you. – Niki? Hi. – Oh my god. This is one
of the most difficult living experience I’ve ever had. – It took so long to get out to where the cows are, and it’s so hard. And you just gotta be doing
it for the good of the cows, For the good of the land, and to survive. – [Niki] Jeanne and Eric took
care of us very, very well, but taking part in a tiny part of their lives has exhausted me. It’s physically challenging, but it’s also mentally challenging. – I thought it was going to be Niki and I barely hanging on and kind of looking to each other for, sort of, strength, but Niki was so strong shoeing the horses and calling the cattle
and doing everything. – There’s no time for
Garrett and I to be annoyed with each other or to piss each other off. We were shoeing a horse, and
when he couldn’t do it anymore, I had to step in and do it. And when I couldn’t do it anymore, he would step back in and do it. – At the end of the day, we
were just there for each other. This landscape can get really lonely so it was great to have her there. – It’s only been three days and I feel like my body’s falling apart. – It’s so hard to live out here, and I have so much respect
for the people who do it. – [Niki] Say bye to the Africa Room. – Bye, Africa Room. (Niki laughs) – Next week
– On Home Buddies… – Earth ships. – [Garrett] It sounds a
little high highfalutin and hippie-dippy. There’s a garage with, like, plants in it. – I think they grow their own vegetables? – That’s kale.
– I hear birds? – There’s birds.
– There’s birds? This is fascinating. – [Garrett] We’re doing a pretty bad job, but we’re learning. (hip muzak)

I grew up around horses, chickens, goats, bunnies, snakes, turkeys, fish, and guinea pigs so I’m pretty used to working with animals and having to clean their pens but it’s so interesting to see how others that haven’t lived in a farm before react to this and it’s cool to see what they think about it!

Am sorry but this guy has the job of a lifetime and he's always fkng complaining and rolling his eyes, and being rude. I don't enjoy watching him at all. Like….why did you even take this on if you are like this? Wouldn't it have been better suited to someone who is cool to watch?

Geez such whiney kids, and what do you mean you have to use your hands to work, of course you do.Damn that boy gives off a rude atmosphere. Hard work like the ranch should be appreciated instead of those kids who just make money off of the internet just by posting some video or picture.

I live on a ranch , and we have more technology than this. Infact, most of our equipment has tech in it. This was like the stone age. Also, as an equestrian as well, I would be too nervous to let people touch my horse, especially his feet.